Quinn paced in his room with heavy worry echoing in his every step. It felt like his knees were injected with lead, and his saliva had been replaced with something much more viscous. His body felt hot, something his body tended to do when his brain ran under extreme pressure and in uncomfortable situations.
Dumbledore knew his identity as the Invisible Vigilante.
'Shit! Shit! SHIT!' It was a huge problem. The moment his grandfather came to know that he had been hunting down terrorists under a mask, all his freedom would be taken away from him. George 'Head Of The Family' West would do everything in his power to restrict Quinn's movement— it didn't matter Quinn was already of age adult, George was going to do everything he could to make sure Quinn didn't have breathing room.
"Aaah! Why did I lose my control. . ."
The meeting with Dumbledore was a trap that he had walked in on willingly without a single shred of persuasion. If Dumbledore had gone directly to George, while it would've left Quinn blindsided, he could've talked his way out of it, and even if George didn't believe him and placed people around him, he could've given them the beat. But Dumbledore had sacrificed that advantage to gain another one— in exchange for informing Quinn that he was going to George, he had gained Quinn's reaction.
And he had given precisely the reaction Dumbledore wanted.
He had pulled up Occlumency and had failed to fabricate emotion on his face for discreet purposes. That single fault had made it look like Quinn was hiding— he was either the Invisible Vigilante or knew who the Invisibilty Vigilante was. The latter had been struck off the board because Dumbledore could prove that Quinn was the Invisible Vigilante— when it came to magic, Dumbledore was an authority whom many people believed. . . and George West was among those people.
There were enough cascading layers of things against Quinn that even if he lied, George wouldn't believe him outright. 'Trust, but not blindly,' was one of George West's favorite mottos, and when he was in doubt, he would do his own digging, and things were bound to seem suspicious with the timing of things, and George didn't need proof admissible by law to form his conclusions.
Even before all that, Quinn couldn't lie to his grandfather. In case he lied and George believed it, and then later it came out that he was indeed the Invisible Vigilante all along. . . that would shatter the trust between grandfather and grandson with cracks and damage spreading to his other relationship as well.
Could he stop the meeting between Dumbledore and George? He could not; stopping Dumbledore physically(magically) wasn't going to work, and he couldn't imagine any other way he could stop either one of them. Dumbledore wanted the benefits that the West resources could provide him, and George would want to meet Dumbledore so he could keep the news from going out.
Fighting Dumbledore? It could either end badly or make enough ruckus to attract unwanted eyes. The chances of safe victory were not high enough for him to take the path that could backfire on him.
The question that remained was if he should be the one to break the news to George or if he should let Dumbledore do it. George was out of the country for a couple of days, which meant that Dumbledore wouldn't find George until then. . .
'I can't be sure.'
. . . Dumbledore could go abroad just to have the talk faster. It made sense as George would be out of his 'comfort' place and would be more perceptible to Dumbledore's demands.
Quinn sighed. The reason he was even thinking of letting Dumbledore break the news was that it may come to that. He needed some essential time to make some moves because whatever was going to happen, things were going to go downhill for him in various ways, and he had to make the preparation needed to face whatever was to come.
Quinn sat himself on the edge of the bed. . . his eyes heavy with thought and contemplation. The sun in the sky traveled its course as the shadows in the room slowly shifted. It was after an hour since he had gone still and silent that Quinn stood up from his bed, walked to his walk-in closet, and after a while, he came out dressed for going out with his suitcase in hand.
"Polly!"
The West house-elf popped into the room. Her big eyes went to Quinn's suitcase and then to his clothes before she looked at his face. There were no questions from her, but Quinn knew what she wanted to ask.
"I'm going to a friend's place for a bit," said Quinn, spinning another lie to tell his family. "I will come back in a few days, but if someone in the family asks. . . I'm at Marcus Belby's house. Ms. Rosey already has his address and his MagiFax details. When they return home, please inform them that it was a last-minute decision."
No one was home, making it the perfect point to leave.
Quinn bid farewell to the clueless Polly, who didn't know what was going on inside. It could be that this was one of the final times for a while she would be able to go to Quinn with a single thought.
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- (Scene Break) -
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Quinn stared at the building in front of him. It was a building entirely opposite to Gringotts; the thought entered his mind just like it had entered the last time he had seen the building. A soul-sucking black without a fleck of dust marring a surface so polished that one could see its reflection.
He walked to the glass doors of the establishment with his eyes glancing at the name written in gold overhead.
「Monolith」
The symbol of terror and reassurance. The bank's policy — don't steal from us, and we will keep your money safe, secured, and growing. Monolith was a classic private bank that catered to affluent clients with an abundance of wealth like West— and provide them with facilities like essential banking services, brokerage, limited tax advisory, concierge-type services, discretionary asset management, and the vast array of wealth management. They were infamous stating for their secrecy promises. Once money goes into Monolith, it's difficult for an outsider to get information about who holds what and how much; they promise that your financials are going to be kept under a tight seal; of course, they won't help you break the law — bend around the law, sure — but not breaking the law. And because they only service high-asset clients, who have rock-solid financial stability, it ensures that Monolith won't go bankrupt, thus making it extremely safe for them to hold people's assets.
He had made a Portkey of the location he had already seen and triggered it to travel to Basel, Switzerland, where the bank that managed his magical money had been securely stored.
The lobby only had one greeting table, and the lobby somehow didn't look desolate despite the lack of any other furniture. Behind the long white patterned marble table sat three women in the prime of their beauty, dressed in identical attire. As he approached them, the middle woman looked up from her work— there was a brief daze in her eyes before clarity descended in her eyes.
"Welcome, Mr. West," she slightly bowed, "we weren't expecting you today; nevertheless, we at Monolith and ecstatic that you are here visiting."
"Thank you, Amaryl," Quinn greeted the front desk concierge and glanced at her identical sisters— Cheryl and Daffodil. This much hadn't changed ever since his last visit to the bank.
"What brings you here today, Mr. West," Amaryl asked politely.
"I would like to meet Gair."
". . . Mr. Gair might not be able to meet you today, Mr. West," she sounded troubled. "He only meets clients through appointments so that his day is planned out. He might not be willing to meet you right now."
"Tell him it is urgent," said Quinn simply.
Amaryl turned to her workstation, and her hands moved behind the thick table. Quinn couldn't tell what she was doing, but he could sense some magic being operated. In the meantime, Quinn turned to the little stone gremlins perched on the walls and ceiling around the huge room. He watched as one of the gremlins' eyes followed him like a security camera. He stared at the stone gremlins intently and kept his eyes on one of the stone gremlins.
After a minute, Amaryl turned to Quinn with a beautiful smile, "Mr. Gair will meet you, Mr. West. He is getting free within the next hour and has asked that you wait in his personal guest lounge that he uses to entertain his guests."
They walked into the inner part of the bank through an entrance in the inner wall of the lobby and entered a room with a dozen doorways. They stepped into the doorway with the number four in roman numerals etched above. Number four was known as the West gate as through there one can go to the part of the bank that handles the West fortune. They walked through a few corridors, passing by many doors and coming across a few people who would make pleasantries with Amaryl, who didn't seem particularly about most of them.
After they exited the corridors, the interior changed into a classic renaissance design, much different from the rest of the bank. They soon reached a pair of dark wood doors. A pale woman sat outside the door, to a side behind a desk. She wore thin-rimmed circular glass with messy brown curls flowing down her shoulders.
Quinn readily greeted the woman, "Ixquic, it has been a while. . . I hope you're doing well."
Ixquic stared at Quinn with her half-dazed eyes. For a moment, they simply stared before Ixquic's eyes regained focus. She got up and took over from Amaryl and led him to an ornate lounge to wait.
"How are you, Ixquic? How is the life of a living blood bag," asked Quinn calmly.
"It has been fruitious."
"How is your health. I hope no complications on that front."
"My health has been fine, thank you. My body has adapted itself to it."
Quinn asked a couple more questions, but the answers were all curt bare-minimum words, so after a while, he stopped asking and closed his eyes in waiting, going through his memories. Around an hour later, he was roused up from his memory traversal and said that Gair was ready to meet him.
Ixquic pushed one pane of the double doors open with her entire body. "Please go in," she gestured to him. Quinn entered the styled office, with Ixquic not going in with him. A wall covered with bookshelves, artwork framed on the others; a sitting area around a table in one part of the room; wooden cabinets fitted with glasses. And the most eye-catching part of the room were animal heads mounted on the upper walls — lion, tiger, wolf, elk, among other non-magical animals but then there were the magical species, and that collection was impressive from every angle — an Egyptian sphinx, a Peruvian Vipertooth dragon, a South Ameican Firedrake, a white-feathered Griffin, and the list went on.
Sitting in the center of the office was a man in his prime, dressed in a simple white shirt and black pants, leaning into his chair behind a simple-yet-ornate four-legged desk.
"Quinn West," said the ancient vampire in his deep voice. "Why are you here without any prior intimation?"
The blood-red eyes stared at Quinn as if trying to peer through all of his secrets.
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-*-*-*-*-*-
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Quinn West - MC - I need to literally run now.
Idris Gair - Vampire - Very old; flirty; laid-back; has raised his own blood bank.
Ixquic - Blood bank (Blood Woman) - I don't speak much.
